Olympic boxing takes a blow

Freddie Evans of Great Britain celebrates after his victory over Custio Clayton of Canada during the Men's Welter (69kg) Boxing on Day 11 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at ExCeL on August 7, 2012 in London, England.

Photograph by: Scott Heavey
, Getty Images

LONDON – Daniel Trepanier, the high-performance director for Boxing Canada, had the joke ready before the question was asked.

“You know people didn’t think we’d get very far in London,” he said. “They thought we’d make it from the airport to the athletes village and that would be it.”

Ba-da boom. You’ve been a great audience. Try the veal.

But, as things transpired, the Canadian boxing team made it a little farther than the athletes village in London, which raises some interesting questions about their performance.

On the one hand, when Custio Clayton dropped a narrow decision to Great Britain’s Freddie Evans in their welterweight quarter-final on Tuesday night, it marked the fourth straight Olympics Canada has failed to win a medal. Mary Spencer, in whom Own The Podium has invested $75,000, also lost her first fight the night before.

On the other hand, they sent one fighter to Beijing, Ontario’s Adam Trupish, who lost his only bout 20-1.

“It’s really hard competing against the Europeans, Cuba and the States,” Trepanier continued. “They have so much experience and they get fights all the time. They fly an hour and they can be in Ireland or Germany. We fly an hour and we’re still in Quebec.”

But will they be in the same place in Rio in 2016? For a program that almost died from wilful neglect four years ago, that’s the real issue.

Clayton, the 24-year-old from Dartmouth, wrote a story that’s become all too familiar for Canadians at these games on Tuesday night. He was close to a medal. He gave it a mighty effort. And he came up just short.

In a raucous atmosphere at the ExCeL, he fell behind Evans, the reigning European champ, 7-2 after the first round, which is basically the equivalent of a five-goal deficit in hockey.

But, in another Canadian theme from these games, Clayton made a fight of it over the final two rounds. Slipping the longer Evans’ jab, he started to conduct business from the inside and slowly changed the entire tone of the fight.

After two rounds it was 10-8 for Evans. After three it was 14-14, which sent the decision to the dreaded countback system in which all punches registered by the judges are counted. In regular scoring, three of the five judges have to register a scoring blow to result in a point for the fighter.

Evans won the decision, which was immediately appealed by Canada and upheld by a three-member jury. A decision has not yet been reached.

Pity, they owed us one after women’s soccer.

“That’s the way it goes,” said Clayton, who didn’t seem particularly disturbed by the decision after the fight. “I thought I pulled it off. I’m not going to complain too much. I’m just going to sit back and chill.”

Clayton was attempting to become the first Canadian fighter to medal since heavyweight David Defiagbon won silver in Atlanta.

“In my book he had the fight,” said his coach, Sylvain Gagnon. “But it was so close. He had to fight against the crowd, against the fighter against the — okay, enough. You know what I mean.”

But unlike the Canadian women’s soccer team, this decision was simply debatable. It wasn’t robbery.

Clayton and superheavyweight Simon Kean from Trois-Rivières ended the Olympic tournament a combined 3-2 and both fighters came within one win of a medal. If you’re looking for a silver lining in the Canadian performance – and conveniently ignoring Spencer’s flame-out – there it is, but the Canucks are still far from restoring their former glory.

In the four Olympics between 1984 and 1996, Canada won eight medals in boxing: gold for Lennox Lewis in Seoul and five silvers. But beginning in 2000, the program fell into a state of repair, which Trepanier, Gagnon and Pat Fiacco, the new president of Boxing Canada, are trying to fix.

In Rio, Clayton would be 28, Kean would be 27, and both fighters would be at their peak. But, in addition to the funding and competition challenges facing Canadian boxing, Trepanier said the biggest obstacle might be building continuity.

“How do we keep them in the program?” he asked rhetorically. “We usually get these kids for one Olympic cycle, then we lose them. We have four years to develop them and then they’re gone.”

Freddie Evans of Great Britain celebrates after his victory over Custio Clayton of Canada during the Men's Welter (69kg) Boxing on Day 11 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at ExCeL on August 7, 2012 in London, England.

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